Well, this is finally the end of The Collapse. It’s been a crazy ride from beginning to end – even though I wrote only half as much as 2008′s The Typist, this was still a ridiculous challenge to finish when coupled with my intense engineering curriculum. I hope you enjoy reading the conclusion of The Collapse as much as I did writing it!

Word Count: 61,973

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The man, standing upon Maiya’s broken Mu Gun, cracked his neck and knuckles. “I can’t let that happen again,” he said. “That would be troublesome.”

Maiya looked at him, wide-eyed in disbelief. Was this really Marshall Vosler – back from the dead so soon? No, it couldn’t be. But Maiya was too tired to figure out this conundrum; instead, she waited for Vosler to strike. She expected him, and in many ways wanted him, to kill her. But the blow never came. Instead, more footsteps were heard around the area. Three more men entered the scene, each more similar-looking than the last.

At the same time, they spoke. “You are probably wondering why the Teconic Rasase injector still works after a tumble of several hundred meters. I know you are, because I know everything. And because I know everything, let me tell you that these injectors are made of a compound of Taconic Slate and diamond. They will never break. They will never stop breaking down this planet.”

One of the Vosler copies walked over to me, then knelt down to look me in the eyes. “There is no way to turn them off,” he said. “Once I set this in motion, Cydia was doomed. Or rather, Cydia in its current incarnation. A new Cydia will arise – one without the need for resources. One that can live forever. One that can share both knowledge and power with all of its people.”

“That’s not true!” I said with all my breath. “You twist your words. You glorify your own creation to the point that I’m not sure even you know its horrors. And, for that, I can’t fault you. You don’t know what you’ve done. I overheard you speaking, I was there – on Earth. You want everyone in a fetch, don’t you? You imagine some sort of glorious golden age for Cydia? Well, after this there will be no more Cydia! There will be no more life, no more consciousness, there will be no power – there will be nothing but knowledge. Knowledge without the power to act on it!”

“Nonsense.”

“No! It’s not nonsense. You’ve created a prison for us all, and you don’t even know it.”

“I’ve saved us all. We were running low on our most precious natural resource. What would we do without it? Earth has no Taconic Slate. Studied have shown this. We need a way to survive, Vincent Torsten. And this is how we will do it.”

“I refuse to accept your solution. Not after experiencing it for myself. And I’m sure Maiya would agree with me – there is nothing sane about shoving the entire planet inside of a bubble to keep it safe from harm. If we run out of resources, we will deal with it as a civilization. In your perfect world, everybody dies!”

“Vince, stop this…” Maiya choked.

“No. He doesn’t get it. How can he not see it? How can—” I felt a sharp pain on my cheek, and then I was flying across the cavern. The Vosler clone had kicked me. I was bleeding bad from my face; it was numb, too. He’d kicked me so hard that he destroyed the faux nerve endings. I put my hand over my cheek to stop the flow of blood, but it didn’t matter – another Vosler clone was running up toward me from the opposite direction. I felt his perfectly shined shoe punt my stomach, sending me once again across the room.

“Now that he’s quiet,” Vosler said to Maiya, “perhaps you and I can have a talk.”

“Perhaps we can. Though I hardly think it’s the time to discuss how you’ve stolen my work. Soon it won’t matter, anyway. I’ll be you and you’ll be me. We’ll all be one great, big collective consciousness. I’ll know everything you want to tell me and more. And so will everyone else.”

“Ah, but that’s what I’d like to talk about. You see, despite you trying to halt my progress, I’d still like to help you out. We used to be such good friends, you know.”

“Before you stole my work to make a quick buck, yes. We were good friends. I wouldn’t say the same now.”

“Regardless, I’m still going to need a research crew. Seeing as how you don’t support what I’m doing either way, I was hoping I could keep you on the outside to lead a small team of researchers and maintenance personnel. You’d have full control over the last Central Square buildings that survive.”

“An offer of a power position in Vosler’s new world order? I’ll decline; I’d rather die.”

“You won’t be dead, either way. And it’s not a position of power – there is no more power. The Collective will hold all of the power. I’m just giving you the opportunity to retain your knowledge, Maiya. I want you, of all people, to have your privacy.”

“Ah, I see it now – you don’t want The Collective to be burdened with the knowledge that this is all a sham. That the technology and everything behind it was my invention, not yours. That you are abusing it, horribly. You must be afraid that the knowledge, when propagated to every soul, will cause an uproar.”

Silence.

“So, how do you plan to keep me safe?”

Vosler spoke again. “There is a bunker that will not break down. You can stay there until it is over.”

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe my ears. I could anything – I was as good as dead to them. And now I knew that Maiya was about to deceive me; to follow along with Vosler and take his offer. I could see the look in her eyes. The last place she wanted to go was The Collective, but it seems like she had no choice. She could either take Vosler’s offer and survive the collapse of the planet, or refuse and fight him to the very end.

I saw her look at me. She probably thought I was dead. That there was no use. That Curie and I were both gone now, and that she was left to fend for herself. But I was right there! I could see her, I could breathe still. I just needed to hang on as long as I could, just long enough to make her refuse Vosler…

I coughed, and oily blood spilled out of my mouth.

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Curie and Derek stood perfectly still, looking at the body of Marshall Vosler standing before them. The body that Curie had most certainly seen dead not long ago. Derek was confused because his comrades were dead. Curie was confused because his comrades had been killed by a dead man.

“It’s pretty wonderful, you know,” Marshall Vosler said, “fetch technology. With it, I have found a way to inhabit multiple bodies at once!” Through doors on the other sides of the room came more clones of Vosler, closing in on Derek and Curie. “I only used one before, of course, but I keep a lot of spares. For backup, you see.”

“You bastard,” Curie said. “I suppose it won’t matter if I tell you that you’ve lost my respect.”

“Not really. Though I’m sure it matters to you.”

“I held you in such high regard. It’s been my dream to go to Earth, you know… you started that project, too. You pioneered so much. And now I’m looking face to face with nothing less than a cold-blooded murderer.”

“Earth? That place is dead. Abandoned. We gave up on it… long ago.”

“Impossible. Vince said—”

“That he overheard me speaking on Earth? Yes, as a habitat for refugees who refused to live inside a fetch. With the planet gone, those people will have to live somewhere. Though I doubt they’ll survive long. The natives are plenty hostile. Just look what I’ve gotten from them!” He pulled out two grenades from the pockets on either side of his suit, then bit off the keys with his teeth before tossing them in Curie and Derek’s direction. Four Vosler clones, each the same, had entered the room and began circling around Derek and Curie, who ran out of the way of the grenades.

“The would try to kill you, most certainly,” a Vosler clone said.

“You wouldn’t last ten days on Earth,” another said.

“It’s not just hostile, it’s unlivable! And we’re sending them all there! Cruel, perhaps…” said yet another Vosler clone.

Curie and Derek were hit with the shrapnel flying around from the blast, spreading oily blood over the floor. A tremor shook the facility; several vital apparatuses fell over and cracked the flooring. The infinite copies of Vosler, Curie and Derek became infinitely more in that shattered glass.

Curie looked at Derek, and the two, without speaking, devised a plan to knock out at least two of the Vosler clones. Derek began running alongside them, while Curie took out Vosler’s old gun and fired several shots. They missed, but gave Curie another opening to shoot a clone that Derek had grabbed a hold of. With as precise aim as he could handle in that situation, Derek fired the gun.

It hit Vosler right in the forehead. His body slumped down, lifeless, oily blood pooling. The scene looked so familiar – but this time, Curie wasn’t fooled. He knew this time that Vosler was far from dead. That he very well may never be dead in the tradition sense of the word, always shuffling his way to and from The Collective in as many bodies as he wanted. Perhaps, all this time, people he’d been interacting with had really been Vosler in different bodies – no, no! He wouldn’t lose his mind that way. He kept his focus on the battlefield.

But that brief loss of focus cost him dearly – one of the clones had grabbed Derek in the meantime, and had him secured in a chokehold. The original Vosler, standing by the pile of decapitated fetches, made his way over to Derek and drew his blade.

“Now, I suggest you call off this stunt.”

“Fat chance, boss,” Curie said triumphantly. “Do it, Derek!”

Derek kicked upward, bruising Vosler’s chin. The clone holding onto him let go in pain, and Derek was running toward Curie when the largest tremor of all began to shake the facility. Derek, as well as Curie and all of the Vosler clones, toppled over and were nearly crushed by falling equipment.

But when they thought the tremor was going to stop, it simply kept going. Equipment kept falling. Curie and Derek attempted to stand up, and Derek looked beside him to see that all but one of the Vosler clones had been crushed by falling medical equipment. The one that was left held onto his leg tightly, preventing him from moving. He, too, was ripped up pretty bad – oily blood formed a small puddle beneath his stomach. His fetch probably wouldn’t last much longer, Derek figured.

“You’re Derek Marland, are you not?”

“Yes…”

“I just wanted to give you my sincere apologies.”

“What? What for?”

“It appears that your friend, Vincent Torsten, is dead. I suppose I know because, well, I’ve just killed him myself!” Vosler laughed, apparently happy with himself. “My, my. The oil they use in fetches looks remarkably similar… to blood…”

He slumped over lifeless, his hand still holding onto Derek’s leg. Derek released his leg and began making his way over to Curie, but as he neared the center of the room the tremor only became worse. An emergency lockdown activated in response to the tremors, causing the doors on all sides of the room to begin closing.

“No!” Curie shouted, running toward the doors. But he couldn’t reach them in time – they were only a few inches open when he reached them. He turned around in sorrow, only to see Derek working the control panel in the center of the room. “What are you doing, Derek?!” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Suddenly, the doors began to rise.

“Get out of here, Adam Curie.”

Curie didn’t understand. The doors were open! They could both escape the facility now. Everybody could, so long as they kept overriding the doors. He imagined in this way, hundreds and thousands of souls were escaping – or at least surviving. More equipment fell due to the tremors, nearly on top of Derek.

“Get your ass over here, Derek! We’ll get out together.”

But Derek shook his head. “The doors only stay open as long as I hold them.”

“No. You’re coming with me. You have to come with me. I just rescued you!”

“Don’t shit yourself, Adam. None of us are rescued! We’ll all be back in our prison soon enough. Can’t you see around you? Our planet’s time is up. But at least you can get out of here and find a safe place where you won’t be sent back to that hellhole. Me? I’ve already been in there long enough. I can handle it. But you’ve still got most of your identity intact. You’ve got friends. My only friend… he’s in there. And I’ve got to go see him. So go! Go and find a safe place.”

Curie looked at Derek with wide, sorrowful eyes, then turned and ran out the open door.

Derek, laughing and seeing that Curie had escaped, released his hold on the open doors. They shut quickly, with enough for to make a bang that hurt Derek’s eardrums. As Cydia crumbled around him, he simply sat on the ground laughing. “Looks like I’ll finally get to see you, Vince,” he said just as the tremors forced a hefty piece of equipment fell upon him.

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Gone. All gone.

They had left.

Together.

Without me.

So what would become of me now? All this time, all this energy – what had I spent it for? Where was Curie – was he alright? I lay there alone, nearly dead. I wished somebody would come and finish the job, instead of assuming I’d died already.

I felt a tremor. First small, then great. Opening my eyes, I could see the cavern begin to crumble. I supposed that was it. Nobody was going to come and rescue me. Maiya had abandoned me to be with Vosler – to retain her identity. She’s thought I was dead, too. I saw how she looked at me and cried when she let with Vosler, him carrying her over his shoulder to bring her to his repair center at the core of the planet.

He’d make her new again. He’d set her up right in his bunker.

The tremor only got worse from there. I could feel is all around me, the ground growing weaker. Through the small bit of vision I had left, I could see the ground cracking beneath my body and all around me. But then I also saw several men in the distance. Or were they women? I couldn’t tell – their faces and bodies were all black like Curie’s. Was it Curie?

I wanted to shout out and ask, but my face was as broken as could be. I couldn’t move my arms to wave; it was like they’d been disabled.

I saw the blank people pass me by, looking at me. I wondered if they knew who I was. If they knew my history.

I suppose what I’d heard about the mines is right. You’re born in the mines, you die in the mines. In my case, I would die in the mines. But it wouldn’t be the end of my existence – I would live on in Vosler’s prison for all eternity, my conscious mind melding forever with the minds of billions of other Cydians. I imagined the pain of assimilation; the quick loss of my individuality. I recalled the gross, sweeping feeling of being forced to believe other peoples’ memories. Not knowing whose memories were my own anymore.
I braced myself. Would the world crumble beneath me?

I saw the blank people disappear in a flash of light. They’d found a light tram. Maybe they’d constructed one. But they were escaping – they were going far, far away from here. There was no way I could catch up to them. All I could do was accept my fate; accept the fate of Cydia. Looking over at the rasase injector, still spewing waxy rasase on the remaining Slate, I accepted my failure as well.

I suppose I would never be happy with anything. I wasn’t happy above the surface, or below the surface. Perhaps I needed to be somewhere where the word ”surface” had no meaning.

Perhaps then I would be happy.

And when the ground beneath me opened up to swallow my body, I let it do so without resistance. I remember – or perhaps I don’t remember – seeing Cydia completely hollow. As though I’d been in the last cavern on the planet. When the ground finally dissolved beneath me, and I fell toward the core of the planet, I saw the world as a great dome structure surrounding me. Completely empty.

At its core, the Renaissance facilities circled around The Collective. That was far, far away. And so I fell, and fell, and fell, and through my remaining vision I could see millions and billions of other bodies falling with me through the cracks in the ground.

Cydia had broken apart. And the pieces were coming tumbling down. Down, down into The Collective.

I closed my eyes and waited for death’s smiling face.

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We were reunited with Derek Marland six minutes and thirty-two seconds after the structures supporting Cydia had been totally destroyed by the Taconic Rasase injections. We and Derek Marland shared our memories, with each other and every other being on Cydia. Our search was, at last, complete.

We are calm.

We are Collective.

Maiya and Adam Curie, together with Vosler, arrived in the same location. Adam Curie located the safety bunker and entered before the lockdown was complete. There he found Maiya, as well as the Corpus Lock he had been searching for. Marshall Vosler had placed it inside of the bunker for use during Cydia’s ultimate collapse.

We observed every event. Marshall Vosler, seeing Adam Curie, attempted to murder him to keep the safety bunker free of strangers. Adam Curie retaliated with his gun, killing Marshall Vosler in the process. Marshall Vosler was transported to us, where we merged with him. We have more fetches, but have no desire to make use of them. Marshall Vosler has become a valuable asset to our continued survival.

“Adam… what are you doing here?” we overheard Maiya speaking.

“Saving my ass, that’s what.”

“Same, I suppose. They… he… he killed Vince.”

“I heard. From him. I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it at this point.”

“Oh. Well, hey, look what’s here.”

We observed Adam Curie looking at the Corpus Lock, eager to turn it on. We did not interfere. Adam Curie placed his hand on the Corpus Lock, which rotated its multiple colors locks to the correct position. A portal opened to Earth at that moment, and Adam Curie stepped back.

“Are you going?” we overheard Maiya say to Adam Curie.

“I… I think so. Everyone who I’ve freed, I know where they’ve gone. They know I may not be coming back. None of us really expect it. I think I can live on Earth and be happy, despite what Vosler tells me. I don’t think it’s hostile. And who knows? I might make one or two friends.”

“Then, I suppose you’re going through that Corpus Lock. Godspeed, my friend.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back, though. I do have some unfinished business.”

“On a dead planet?”

“There’s always business to be done. Here.” We observed Adam Curie handing a document to Maiya, filled with spherical drawings.

“What… what is this?”

“A long time ago, I drafted this up. It’s the blueprint for a new planet. When I was fascinated with Earth, I’d dream up tons of different worlds we could live in. Eventually, I learned enough about the chemical makeup of a planet to be able to effectively design my own. I figure the technology to do it doesn’t exist on Earth yet – but here, I know that it does. But I can’t stay here. It’s too chaotic.”

“What are you saying?”

“Take over my work, Maiya. Make it useful for yourself. Make it useful to this broken planet.”

We observed Maiya nod in agreement, then take the document, fold it up, and store it in her pocket. Adam Curie walked toward the portal, but stopped. “So, what will you do without Cydia?”

“I believe that there are probably some survivors. I will try and help them continue living on the remains of Cydia. I think, since I’m close to The Collective, I should be able to help some people escape as well. I’ll get some fetches ready and see what I can cook up – who knows? In time, people might be able to leave The Collective freely and live on the remains of Cydia.”

“I wish you luck with that, Maiya.”

We observed Maiya also stop Adam Curie just as he was about to enter through the portal to Earth.

“Hey! What should I call this planet after it’s constructed?”

We observed Curie smiling. “Talos,”we overheard him say. “Make it good. Your word.”

We observed Adam Curie step into the darkness and disappear.